Gravity director Alfonso Cuarón told Wired that, while he loved every second of it, he will never do a space movie again. The four-year process was so complicated that it's a miracle that it worked at all. Reading about how they did it is truly incredible.

Consider this: They first had to make the entire movie as an animation with actual sound, music, and lighting. The most intricate storyboard ever created. They kept adjusting it forever and, only when they were completely happy with it, they moved into actual filming.

After that, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney had to train to execute extremely convoluted dancing-in-space choreographies with perfect timing. They became Russian ballerinas doing their numbers suspended in a virtual reality box.

Only when everything was perfect they started the actual filming process. And then they had to put it all together in one seamless and glorious whole. IN 3D! Let's not forget about the 3D component, which only added to the difficulty of the planning and filming. Gravity is perhaps the only good use of 3D after Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

Technically, Gravity is already one of the wonders of moviemaking history. I can only think of Alfred Hitchcock's Rope—which completely changed conventions by making the entire movie in a single sequence, only interrupted to change the film rolls—as a similar feat in terms of planning and perfect execution. I'm sure Hitch would have used animation to plan his films too. He always made meticulous storyboards that resulted in movies that required almost no editing at all.

And on top of that, not only Gravity is technically perfect: It seems that everyone loves Gravity because of the story and acting. A must watch this weekend.

Katharine Trendacosta

The Fantastic Four reboot and Amazing Spider-Man 3 have both gotten new writers. See Katniss and Gale cuddling on the set of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay. And set photos reveal Game of Throne's new Daario. Spoilers ahead!

Gravity

In an interview with Wired, Alfonso Cuarón says he is never going to do a space movie again:

I think I’d prefer to go to space. I will never do another space movie. I’m very proud of this; I loved every single second of the experience. But that’s it. It took me four and a half years—I’m ready to move on.

Why was it so hard?

We had to do the whole film as an animation first. We edited that animation, even with sound, just to make sure the timing worked with the sound effects and music. And once we were happy with it, we had to do the lighting in the animation as well. Then all that animation translated to actual camera moves and positions for the lighting and actors.

We did a whole exploration of the screenplay, every single moment; we made judgments about everything. Once we began shooting, we were constrained by the limitations of that programming.

How so?

We shot space scenes in a sort of virtual-reality box that had the characters’ environments projected on the walls. The actors had very little room to change their timing or their positions. But we adapted. Sandra Bullock trained like crazy to be able to be a part of all these technological challenges. It was choreography for her. I think her background as a dancer helped a lot. It was so much by numbers. After all the training and all the rehearsals, she was able to just focus on the emotional aspect of her performance

The Amazing Spider-Man 3

Apparently Sony's liking what they see on Amazing Spider-Man 2, because the studio's already secured the writing team (Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Jeff Pinkner) for another outing. They also want to bring Marc Webb back to direct. [SlashFilm]

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Ender's Game

Here's a new IMAX poster.

The Fantastic Four

There are more delays for this reboot, as Simon Kinberg (X-Men: Days of Future Past) has been hired to rewrite the script. Previous versions of the script have been tackled by a long list of writers, including Jeremy Slater, Michael Green, Seth Grahame-Smith and T.S. Nowlin. Kinberg is said to be "overhauling the script substantially." [Hollywood Reporter]

Night People

This horror movie about high-tech thieves in a haunted house has started filming in Donegal, Ireland. The film is written and directed by Gerard Lough. [IFTN]

Once Upon a Time

Exec producer Adam Horowitz has a ton to say about Neverland as a "prism" for the whole show and about the Charming family:

In these first few episodes, we are really trying to use Neverland, and we continue to do it as the season progresses, as a prism through which we can see these characters hopefully more clearly and more equally. Layers will start to peel back on all of them, and that will continue going forward.

It's complicated - and hopefully in a good way - which is, that they're an unusual. There's this odd age thing going on between them - they're the same age - and also they've been separated for many, many years, and now they're thrown together on a mission, and really, for the first time, in an enclosed kind of space they're able to start to deal with and sort out some of these issues that they have.

He also explains how the split of the season's going to work:

It is impacting, and we hope in a really positive way. In addition to two 11-episode arcs, the scheduling of running them more or less uninterrupted in both arcs allows us, hopefully, to really gain story momentum, and to really look at them as two mini-seasons that are hopefully thematically connected and building to one sort of big finish. It allows us to tell what we call the 'Neverland arc' in the first half, and in the second half tell the '[blank] arc' which we're not going to spoil just yet, which will grow out of where you see these first 11 end. As writers, it's been both challenging and really kind of freeing in a way, to allow us to really focus on giving a complete experience in the Fall and a complete experience in the Spring.